Regulators previously said that they would not pull the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines from the market.
The Food and Drug Administration is mulling over conducting its own evaluation of the levels of DNA in COVID-19 vaccines, an FDA official has disclosed.
“I’ll say that that is something that’s being discussed,” Dr. Tracy Hoeg, a senior adviser to the FDA’s commissioner, told members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel on Sept. 19.
Before the panel’s members unanimously recommended during the meeting that the CDC roll back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, a number expressed concerns about growing evidence of higher-than-allowed levels of DNA in the vaccines, the spreadofthevaccinebeyond the injection site, and the long-term persistence of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)—a key part of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna shots.
The CDC has described mRNA as the entity teaching cells how to make copies of the spike protein to enable protection when the real virus, with its own spike protein, attacks the body. “After the mRNA delivers the instructions, your cells break it down and get rid of it,” a CDC graphic states.
Retsef Levi, chair of the advisory panel’s COVID-19 immunization workgroup, showed the graphic during the meeting.
“We have a range of things on the mRNA platforms that really suggests that it doesn’t work as intended,” Levi said, citing issues such as the spread of spike protein and mRNA into various parts of the body and “DNA contamination.”
Sequence Not Highlighted, Residual DNA Found
Canadian officials in 2023 confirmed to The Epoch Times that Pfizer’s vaccine contained a DNA sequence that the manufacturer had not highlighted. Some scientists, including former Johnson & Johnson scientist David Wiseman, said they were concerned about the impact of residual DNA left behind by the sequence, which had been used in the past for manufacturing other drugs.
That DNA could integrate into the human genome and create autoimmunity problems, Kevin McKernan, who has confirmed the presence of residual DNA in COVID-19 vaccine vials, told The Epoch Times.
The FDA, in a brief statement in 2023, did not say whether it was aware of the sequence.
“With over a billion doses of the mRNA vaccines administered, no safety concerns related to the sequence of, or amount of, residual DNA have been identified,” a spokesperson said at the time. “With regard to the FDA-approved mRNA vaccines, available scientific evidence supports the conclusion that they are safe and effective.”
While the sequence has not been detected in Moderna’s vaccine, other testing has found DNA in both the Pfizer and Moderna shots. McKernan and other researchers in a paper published on Sept. 6 said they found levels of residual DNA in vaccines from the companies that were higher than the regulatory limit set by the FDA.
